Keys ringed in doors as they opened and a young man walked inside. He turned eighteen this year and wore a bored expression on his face. He lazily took his shoes of and slowly approached stairs.

“Honey, is that you?” The woman in her fifties asked, as she took a quick look at him from doors nearby.

“Hi mom, I’m home.” He replied with a small wave of his hand.

“Dinner will be ready soon so wash your hands and come to eat.” She told him as she went back to the kitchen.

When she disappeared again, he went up to his room and quickly threw his school-bag on the bed. As his mother reminded him, he went and washed his hands as he doesn’t want to listen to her nagging about it later. In a few minutes he was already sitting in the kitchen and gulping down his meal.

“So Tom, how was school today?” His father asked as he glanced at him from behind his newspapers.

“Nothing really worth mentioning.”

“You always say that. What about that test from last week?”

“Don’t know. Teacher still didn’t bring it back.”

“Pete please, let him eat first.” His mother defended him as she washed the dishes.

“I’m only curious Susan.”

After few minutes passed, the front doors opening could be heard again.

“We are home.” Two female voices shouted cheerily as they came inside.

They were Tom’s two sisters. The older one, Sarah, just turned twenty-four. She recently started living alone and today she was supposed to move her remaining things to her new apartment. Beside her stood his younger sister, Elisa. As she was only nine years old, she cutely held Sarah’s hand and was happily smiling right now.

“Tom you should go look at Sarah’s apartment, it’s so nice.” Elisa tried to persuade him as he was the only one who didn’t see it till now. “And she promised me that I can even sleep over sometimes.” She tried to make him envious, as she showed her love for her big sister.

“Good for you.” Tom answered in monotone voice, not really interested.

“And, and…” Elisa started praising her sister again, but Tom interrupted her as he suddenly got up.

“Thanks for dinner mom. I will be in my room, studying.” He told them as he disappeared on the stairs.

“What’s wrong with that boy in last years?” His mother wondered as she picked up dishes after Tom.

“Let him be honey. He will grow out of it.” Peter responded not really worried as he turned the TV on.

“I will go talk to him.” Sarah reassured her parents and hurried after Tom.

“Oh.” Peter wondered as he watched TV not really caring what was happening around him.

“What’s wrong dad?” Elisa asked curiously, now eating her dinner.

“Nothing really sweetheart, they just warned that the storm is coming tonight.” Peter answered not really worried about it as he watched news.

*Knock* *Knock* *Knock*

“Tom, can I come in for a second?”

Tom could hear his older sister as she opened a door without waiting for his reply.

“Why are you asking when you already let yourself in?” He asked her, not really interested in what she had to say.

“Don’t be like that. I got a surprise for you.” Sarah said grinning and gestured him to follow her as she went back to the hallway.

After a deep sight he got up and went after her. He knew it was better to go, or she would just constantly nag him about it.

“What do you want sis? I’m not really in a mood for your surprises.” He told her, as he went closer to her.

She was patiently waiting for him in front of her old room, from where she just moved out recently.

She went in, still gesturing him to follow her, not really caring about his sulky attitude.

“I told you, I’m not in the mood for your silly jokes.” He started to sound angry after he noticed that she still didn’t give a damn about how he felt. Prepared to finally snap at her, he went inside after her.

After he angrily went in, he noticed her standing beside VRMMORPG machine. Yes, the thing everybody wanted but not everybody was so blessed as to obtain it. It was developed and released together with a game, RealmWalker, three years ago. It wasn’t like machine was extremely pricey, no. The problem lied in the number of accounts that could be bought. In release date it was merely one million for the whole world and it never went beyond that. There was only one server for it and company who made it never mentioned any extension about the numbers of players. Even if you successfully acquired the machine and a game, but you were too late, you could never log in. When your data was scanned and inputted inside and once account was registered its space was taken. Only way to vacant it was to delete it. Another problem was that once you did this you would never be able to log back in, even with vacant account space. So basically you got only one in a life-time opportunity to play RealmWalker. When you leave, there is no way back.

As Tom quietly stared at his older sister he was wondering: “Why is RW machine still here? You said that you were finished moving.”

“I’m giving it to you.”

When she said that, his mind went blank.

“WHAT?”

“I’m saying, I’m giving it to you.” She said again, enjoying his reaction.

“But what about you sis, and your account, and your guild, and your work? I know you love that game.” He was confused. He, once in TV, saw people who quit RealmWalker and all of them regretted it as biggest mistake of their life.

He was well aware how much time she spent in that game. At start she only wanted to use it for her theme in college. But then she fell in love with it. As time slowly went by she made friends in there, they created party and then even a guild. One of the first’s guilds that were created in RealmWalker actually and one of the best, with her as guild master.

“Don’t worry about it. I already bought my own machine and downloaded all avatar data I needed for transfer from this one.” She replied with big smile on her lips.

“What about account space? It will never allow me to just log in.” He wanted to know as he still stared in disbelief.

“This year they added new vacant account spaces. 100 000 if I was to be precise. And I was able to obtain one thanks to my position as guild master.” She explained to him still looking happy about his reaction. “I already registered it on your name and had it synchronized with this machine. All you have to do is let the machine scan you for your personal data and you are good to go.”

As he stood there and his brain slowly recovered from the initial shock, it finally jolted him: “I will be finally able to play RealmWalker.” He thought.

“Thanks sis, you are the best.” He suddenly hugged her, not really caring about being embarrassed.

“I have seen how much you wanted to play last years. So it is only natural that I help my little brother.” She answered little surprised from the hug earlier. “Come on, let’s get you in to the game.”

It took them roughly one hour for everything to set up and upload. She explained to him how to take care of machine from time to time and how to find her in the game later. Now the only thing he needed to do was to log in, create an avatar and he was ready to start.

After he seen her off, because it was getting late and the early mentioned storm hovered above them, he went to talk to his parents.

“Did you two know about it?” He asked blatantly, already knowing the answer.

“Of course.” They answered together, already knowing what he asked about. “Sarah mentioned it. If your marks in school won’t be affected by it we don’t see any reason to forbid it.” His father calmly explained and warned him.

After that Tom rushed to his room and quickly finished his homework. Message of his parents was clear to him. Either he keeps his marks in school, or they will ban him from RealmWalker. In school he was average so it didn’t really cost him extra effort or time to comply with their requirements. Also this was his last year before university, so he didn’t really have so much studying to do. And after three years of waiting and listening to, how great the game is, he wasn’t willing to risk a ban from his father. He knew from first hand that it was pretty hard to lift it.

Finally he sat down in the RW machine, ready to complete the creation of his avatar. He put on a helmet and blue light enveloped him.

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Please confirm your age.

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This was another problem he had before. ReamlWalker was labelled 18+. There was violence, gore, sexual themes and a lot of another adult stuff that wasn’t for minors. Literally nothing was censored. You could also feel a portion of pain that you suffered in the game through the machine. About 40% of it. This had many bad recesses through the world, but developers were uncompromising saying: “We want to bring so much reality as we can. Let the players feel what their avatars feel and create a strong bond with the world of RealmWalker.”

“Welcome new soul.” Soft female voice said to him as he floated over the planet resembling Earth. Only it looked much bigger. Also two moons instead of one rotated around it. But the biggest surprise was the ring of asteroids which was slowly cycling it.

“Are you ready to become a new realm-walker?” Voice asked as a woman figure radiating gold light appeared before Tom.

“Yes.” He said excitedly, unable to mask his smile.

She nodded few times satisfied with his determination.

“Then let me be your guide.” She said and blue window opened before him.

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Please choose your starting race.

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Then a long list appeared. It was divided to the two main categories. One of them was humanoid races. Here you could find humans, elves, dwarves, dryads, beast-men, fairies, trolls, orcs, halflings, vampires. Each one of them having a lot of subcategories. For example elf could be wood-elf, high-elf, night-elf or blood-elf. Some of them are better at healing, some at nature magic and some at range combat. Differences aren’t that big, but with this system one could dedicate everything solely for one purpose, or create some kind of hybrid class. There were infinite possibilities in RealmWalker. You could learn anything you want, but based on your race and class some things will be learned faster and some would be very hard and have harsh conditions to accomplish.

For example, take a human mage. He can learn any kind of magic and acquire an absolute mastery in it. He can even acquire masteries in many different types of magic simultaneously if he dedicates his time and great effort for this goal. But elves will always learn magic faster than humans.

Another great thing about RealmWalker was the fact that you weren’t bound by your class like in another game.

This meaning: when you choose a mage class you could still go and master sword-fighting or archery. Of course as mage you will need to spend tremendous time for this. So 99,9% of people concentrated on mastering one thing first. Another problem was you never really know if you mastered your class as there were literally infinite possibilities of how to cast spells or how to combine them and create something new and original. Of course this doesn’t apply only to mages but to all classes. You want a healer who is good at assassination? Sure, go and create it. These classes then create a hybrid class, or as developers called it a new Legacy line. Everybody has this ability but it was tremendously hard to acquire. From start of the game to this date only four unique Legacy lines were confirmed.

Another category Tom could choose his avatar from was monsters. This was allowed only recently, when they decided to increase account numbers. New players could become a monster avatar in the game. There were skeletons, zombies, wolves, ghosts, slimes, goblins, almost any basic monster in the game.

The problem was: It was very difficult to play as the monster. You would need to adapt to almost everything, because it would be new to you. When you wished to start as a wolf you will need to learn how to run on four legs in the game properly for moving or use of claws and fangs for attacking. Another harsh thing about the monsters was their death penalty.

As human you only lose some experience points, items you have equipped at your death can be stolen easily and you can’t log back to the game for 7 days. Then you will be revived in a closest temple. As time of revival would be too long this way, there exists an exception for this rule. That is, if you die, your friends or party members can directly bring your dead body back to the temple and you can be revived almost instantly if a special item is used. This item can be obtained in the game through various means as quests rewards or drop items. Also everybody is provided with one after logging in for first time.

When you die as a monster you will be revived almost instantly in a place called Nest of Origin, but you will lose all experience points and downgrade back to lvl. 1. Many would ask: Why bother with it? Because, as monster you have a special trait of evolution which humanoid avatars don’t possess, Bloodline. Take the wolf as an example. After levelling and obtaining power and knowledge you can evolve to barghast type and from there to cerberus type or werewolf type of the monster, based on what you did for evolution and how you did it. This, of course, is very hard. As monster you would often need to kill people in villages or near cities for experience and when you do they put a bounty on you and quests are created to hunt you down instead. Monsters could also have big problems with armour they want to wear or weapons they try to equip.

Tom, curious about a lot of possibilities, randomly clicked on monster list and read description.

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Imp

They are lesser and weakest race of devils. Imps are small and not very attractive monsters. Because of this they are lonely little creatures, always in search of attention. They often use jokes and pranks as a means of attracting friendship, which often backfires when people became tired or annoyed of the imp's endeavours, usually driving it away or killing it. When this happens imps can be very malicious and their pranks become dangerous to one’s life. Being associated with hell and fire, they take a particular pleasure from playing with temperatures and fire elements. To this end, it came to be believed that imps are often the familiar spirit servants of witches and warlocks.

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“They don’t seem to be a very good race, I should choose something more powerful.” Tom thought to himself indecisively browsing the list. As he wanted to choose and read about another race, suddenly an unbelievable pain stormed through his body.

“Aaaaarrrgh.” As he shouted from shock and pain, he lost consciousness.

When Peter came back after driving Sarah home, he wanted to speak to his son. In last few years Tom wasn’t very associative and he as his father was becoming uneasy because of it. It was heavily raining outside and occasionally lightning struck somewhere in a distance.

“Daddy, I’m scared of lightning.” Elisa said cutely as she peeked sheepishly from her room.

Big smile appeared on Peter’s face as he faced her.

“Honey, there is nothing to be afraid of.” He said softly, trying to calm her. “Come, I promise I will stay with you until you fall asleep.” He offered her still smiling.

“OK.” She said more cheerfully now reaching for his hand.

Peter held her and helped her back to bed. Then he sat on the edge of the bed and patiently waited for her to fall asleep.

“Daddy? Why Tom doesn’t want to visit Sara in her new home? He doesn’t like her anymore?” She asked worried about her brother.

“Don’t worry about it honey. I’m sure he likes both of you. I’m sure he is just shy about it.” Peter tried to comfort her as he kissed her on cheek.

It took only a few minutes for Elisa to fall asleep. He quietly closed the doors behind him as he didn’t want to wake her up. Then a lightning struck loudly near the house.

“Aaaaarrrgh”

Peter could hear a loud scream from Sarah’s room where Tom was supposed to play RealmWalker right now. With bad feeling he ran to the doors slamming them open with haste. There, Tom was lying in RW machine and steam was rising from his body and slightly burned skin could be seen on his arm and neck.

“SHIT! Susan, SUSAN! Call an ambulance!” He screamed full of worry while approaching Tom, seeing that he is not breathing.